


Search and Find

by Headfulloffantasies



Series: Clones and Kings [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Ahsoka (mentioned) - Freeform, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hide and Seek, Lost Mando, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Rex and Grogu bond, Wolffe (Mentioned) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 10:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30087450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Headfulloffantasies/pseuds/Headfulloffantasies
Summary: Three hours pass and Rex still hadn't heard from Mando. He scooped up Mini-Yoda and decided that if Mando couldn't find his own way home then Rex would go bring him home.
Series: Clones and Kings [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2168337
Comments: 21
Kudos: 111





	Search and Find

Rex needed to have words with Ahsoka. When he’d finally managed to contact her on Wolffe’s behalf, she’d practically squealed with glee at the sight of the other clone. And then she’d scooped Wolffe up and dragged him away to do undercover work in a distant sector. But Ahsoka had left Rex with Mando and Yoda Model 2.0. Ahsoka told Rex it was important. Ahsoka claimed the child had incredible powers that could not be left untended until Skywalker finished his quest. Ahsoka promised Rex was doing the will of the Force.

Why pray tell, did the Force want Rex covered in drool and run ragged keeping a toddler from eating jumper cables? No one would tell Rex. So Rex continued to shadow the Mand’alor’s steps.

Mando had a lead on his elusive beskar dealers. Not just the thieves, but the big dogs involved in melting down stolen armour and selling it on the black market. The lead led them to Coruscant. 

Rex hated Coruscant. The towering spires twisting up into infinity and the platforms raised higher and higher into the sky gave Rex a sense of vertigo. The ground never felt stable on the top levels and the lower levels were always shrouded in dark.

Only the old Jedi Temple sat free of the dizzying influence of modern architecture. Still, Rex wouldn’t go back there in a million years if someone paid him a million credits. That was a haunted place.

Mando landed his ship on a platform somewhere in the middle of the levels just after sunset. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Rex asked for the umpteenth time.

Mando gave him a flat stare through the helmet. “I won’t risk taking Grogu with me,” he explained again. “And this has to be done tonight before the dealers get wind of me. I need you to watch Grogu until I come back.”

The tyke slept in his hammock in Mando’s bunk. His massive ears twitched every now and then as he dreamed. Rex imagined Little Yoda dreamed of frogs of lightsabers. 

Mando strapped his pulse rifle over his shoulder. He checked his whistling birds and re-loaded his blaster twice. If Rex was a braver man, he’d guess Mando was nervous. 

Finally, Mando approached his son. Rex turned his head to give them a bit of privacy. Out of the corner of his eye, Rex watched Mando caress Un-Yoda’s fat cheeks. Rex averted his eyes. 

Mando’s boots thudded down the ramp. Rex followed to close the door behind him. Mando turned on the last step. 

“If I’m not back in three hours, take Grogu to Luke Skywalker’s Jedi school,” Mando instructed.

“What?” Rex squawked. “But-.”

Mando swept off into the night, ignoring Rex’s protests. 

Rex shuffled in the doorway. Mando hadn’t said anything about leaving him to die in a Coruscant gutter. The mission hadn’t seemed that dangerous to Rex when they’d discussed it. Had Mando lied to Rex about the severity of the danger?

Rex had half a mind to grab his guns and go after the kriffer. But Master Yoda’s Copy still slept in his hammock. Rex kicked himself. He should have known if Mando refused to bring the kid that this mission was too much for Mando to handle alone. The buir and ad’ika normally could not be separated on pain of death. 

A chirp drew Rex’s attention. He looked down. The New Yoda blinked sleep from his huge eyes. He babbled and waved his hands to be lifted. Rex reached down and picked him up.

“Well, kid?” Rex asked. “I think your buir may have stepped in the bantha’s mess this time. So, do we wait him out, or do we go after him?”

The child snuggled into Rex’s elbow and fell back asleep. Rex decided that meant one vote for giving Mando the benefit of the doubt. Rex rocked the kid gently and made his way up to the cockpit. He sat in the pilot’s chair and watched the dark streets through the windscreen. Rex’s stomach rolled with every passing second. He was a soldier. He wasn’t used to laying low and sitting around when someone else faced the fire. 

Every moment that went by was a moment Mando might have a bullet in the back of a knife between his ribs. Rex couldn’t stand this. He checked the chronometer. Only an hour had passed. 

Rex didn’t mean to fall asleep. Honestly, he had worked himself up so much he didn’t know he could sleep. But the kid had made a nice warm lump on his chest and the night dragged on. 

Rex bolted awake alone and cold. 

The tiny Jedi was gone. Rex lurched out of the pilot’s seat. 

“Hey kid?” Rex called out. He didn’t see any green ears or hear any pattering feet. Rex had left the door to the cockpit open. He cursed himself as he hurried down the ladder. 

“Kid?” Rex scanned the interior of the main hold. Mando’s bunk stood open. Yoda the Younger had not returned to his hammock. 

“Kid?” Kriff, what was his name? Googoo? Grog? Gremlin?

“Little Grub?” Rex tried. 

A babble caught Rex’s attention. The pantry door hung open. Master Yoda’s Double sat on the highest shelf, his clawed feet waving. Wrappers littered the floor along with crumbs and rations bars deemed unacceptable to the toddler’s unknowable sense of taste. 

Rex scooped up the child. “How many of those did you eat?”

The child only burped. He took another huge bite of the ration bar in his hands. Those new teeth growing in didn’t seem to bother him so much right now. 

Rex brushed crumbs off Not-Yoda’s face. The kid caught hold of Rex’s finger and waved it around. 

“Yes, you’re very cute and very naughty,” Rex grumbled. He extracted his finger before The Progeny of Master Yoda tried taking a bite out of it. 

Rex glanced up at the closed ship’s ramp. “So your buir still hasn’t come home, has he Little Grub?” Rex shifted the child to settle against his hip. Rex pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why can’t anything ever go according to plan?”

The baby cooed. Rex looked down at him. Those huge eyes implored Rex. 

“Kriff,” Rex cursed. “We all knew I wasn’t going to leave him to die here. Are you ready to go drag him out of whatever mess he’s gotten himself into?”

Hardly-Yoda dropped his ration bar and smacked his sticky hands against Rex’s chest, a string of gurgles flowing between his teeth.

“Okay then,” Rex nodded. He grabbed his pistols and opened the ship’s ramp. A squall of rain lashed against his face. Rex tucked the child into the crook of his arm and slogged out into the storm. The wind nearly toppled Rex over. He staggered off the landing pad and into the relative shelter between two buildings. 

“This way.” Rex headed down. Mando’s contact owned some kind of warehouse in the lower levels of Coruscant. Rex hustled past the denizens of people trying to escape the rain. Eventually, they wound up in a dark, wet alleyway that smelled like dead loth cat. The warehouse door hung open. 

Rex unholstered a gun and carefully stepped from the dim street into the blackness of the warehouse. The empty space echoed the screech of the door falling shut. Rex froze. His heart pounded while he waited for someone to jump out from behind the scattered shadows. His eyes gradually adjusted to the dark. The shadows coalesced. Rex drew a sharp breath. He covered the child’s eyes. Those weren’t crates or boxes. They were bodies. 

Rex tread carefully, stepping over outstretched arms and crumpled legs. He recognised among the wounds the marks left behind by whistling birds.

“Your buir was here, Little Grub,” Rex whispered. 

The child whined. 

“He’s not here anymore,” Rex noted the lack of shining silver armour among the fallen. “So where did he go, Little Grub?”

Rex followed the trail of carnage. A disgusting smear of blood led out the back door. Rex prayed it didn’t belong to Mando. Rex stepped out into the rain again. He blinked water from his eyes. A body slumped against the alley wall. 

Rex realised with a jolt that if the beskar thieves had won and left Mando’s body to drown in the storm without his armour, Rex would never recognise Mando. He knelt beside the cold corpse. It couldn’t be Mando, Rex decided. This man was too bulky in the shoulders and round in the middle to be Mando. 

So, Mando had slaughtered an entire warehouse of armed men and followed this last straggler out to finish the job. And then what? Where had he gone?

Rex spun a circle. This alley was used by a dozen establishments as a garbage disposal. The mouth of the alley led to a main thoroughfare. If Mando had gone that way Rex would never catch up to him. 

Yoda the Smallest cooed. Rex glanced down at him. The child stretched his hand out. Rex followed where he pointed. The door directly across the alley was smudged with blood. 

“Good work, Little Grub,” Rex said even as his throat closed with worry. Someone had left this alley covered in gore. It had to be Mando. Rex just prayed the blood on the door handle didn’t belong to Mando.

Rex shoved the door open. 

Pounding bass and flashing rainbow lights deafened and blinded Rex immediately. 

Rex had heard this joke. A clone and a baby walk into a bar. What happens next may surprise you. 

The music buzzed. Rex craned his neck to try and see above the crowd milling around the tables. Rex grabbed the first man walking his way.

“You seen a Mandalorian running around?” Rex asked.

“No,” the man said almost before Rex was finished speaking.

Rex frowned. “You sure?”

“Never seen a Mandalorian in my life. Now scram,” the man shooed Rex away.

Rex backed into a woman. “Sorry,” he apologised. 

She put her manicured hand on his arm and leaned into his space. Rex got ready to tell her he didn’t want to dance. She put her red lips next to his ear. 

“I heard you say something about a Mandalorian,” she said over the music. “Go ask Erl.” She nodded to the squat Didynon with white ridges on his face and bulging eyes minding the bar. 

“Erl knows everything,” the woman promised. 

Rex pushed his way to the bar. He had to wait for the Didynon to finish serving several customers before he could attract Erls’ attention. Tiny Yoda reached a clawed hand for the amber drink someone had abandoned on the bar top. Rex scooped him up and away. Yoda Junior wailed. One of the eyes on the sides of Erl’s head swiveled in Rex’s direction. 

“Erl?” Rex asked. 

The Didynon raised his head. Rex found he couldn’t look in both eyes at once. He tried his best to pick one and stay focused. 

“I’m told you might have seen a Mandalorian around here?” Rex asked.

Erl’s gaze dropped to the child wriggling in Rex’s arms.

“That thing housebroken?” Erl demanded. 

Rex honestly didn’t know. “I’m looking for a Mandalorian,” Rex repeated.

“I heard you,” Erl nodded. “I seen a Mando about an hour ago. Silver armour? Yeah, that was him. He came storming in here from the back room, covered in blood, and then left in a hurry.”

Rex perked up. “You see which way he went?”

“Might have,” Erl blinked both eyes one after the other. 

Rex grumbled and dug into his pocket. He came up with a handful of credits and dumped them on the bar.

Erl leaned closer. “The Mando said he was going back to his ship.”

Great. Rex deflated. If Mando had left an hour ago, he would have run into Rex and Not-Yoda-Yet. Something had to have happened between the bar and the ship.

“Thanks,” Rex left the bar. He stood in the rain for a long moment. He had no idea where to look next. Underage-Yoda wailed again. Rex tried to calm him. The child only cried harder. Big fat tears mixed with the rain slapping down.

“Hush, it’s alright,” Rex tried bouncing the kid in his arms. “Your buir’s around here somewhere. We just have to find the kriffer. Nobody can kill that bucket-head. I swear he’s immortal. That’s why he keeps going on suicide missions. He’s proving his invincibility. And his ability to give me an ulcer.”

The child quieted from wailing to loud sniffles. He seemed to be listening, so Rex kept talking.

“That’s it, Little Grub. Someone up there is watching over your buir. Maybe even Master Yoda himself.” Rex let out a barking laugh. “Wouldn’t that be a sight? Old Master Yoda keeping an eye on you and the kriffing Mand’alor. I wonder what the old jetti thought of your buir claiming the Darksaber.”

Rex imagined Master Yoda swinging his cane and screeching. The thought brought another laugh. 

The child had quieted. He gripped Rex’s gloved index finger between both hands. 

Rex sighed. “I don’t have any more ideas, Little Grub. Let’s go back to the ship and try to get some sleep. Your buir might come back on his own. If not, we can try to find him in the morning.”

Rex slogged through the puddles back to the landing dock. A voice shouted as Rex approached. Rex spun with a hand on his blaster. 

“Woah there,” a man with an impressive beard waved from the shelter of an overhang at the edge of the dock. “I mean you no harm, friend. My name is Teach.”

“Teach,” Rex held back a sigh. “I don’t really have time to chat.”

“You’re looking for the Mandalorian?” Teach asked. Rex went still.

“How do you know that?”

Teach shrugged. “The Mandalorain was looking for you.” 

“What?” Rex squawked. “When?”

Teach scratched his beard while he thought. “Maybe twenty minutes ago.”

“Where did he go?” Rex demanded.

“That way,” Teach pointed a dirty finger in the direction Rex had originally left the ship.

“I am an idiot,” Rex hissed. Premature Yoda cooed. “You don’t have to agree, I already know it’s true.” Rex grumbled. “Come on Little Grub. If your buir was still upright twenty minutes ago, then he’ll loop back to the ship eventually.”

“Better hurry,” Teach advised. “Your friend wasn’t looking too good.”

Rex stopped in his tracks. “What does that mean?”

Teach spread his hands helplessly. “He was covered in blood. And sort of tipsy, you know?”

Kriff. It sounded like Mando hadn’t escaped the fight unscathed after all.

“Don’t worry,” Rex patted the child’s head. “We’ll find him.”

Rex was a soldier. Better than that, he was a Captain. He knew how to sweep a grid search. He started by heading in the direction the man had pointed. Rex followed the street to its end. He kept his eyes peeled for a kriffing Mandalorian just as idiotic as Rex himself. 

Rex and the green bean in his possession weaved back and forth down the streets, alleys, and side streets all around the landing dock. Rex asked the people he found braving the rain about Mando. None of them had seen Rex’s lost bucket-head. If the ghost of Master Yoda really was looking down, now was a good time for the old gremlin to give Rex a divine signal. 

Rex slammed into something solid as brick. 

“Kark!” Rex spat. He checked over Yoda the Second. “Watch where you’re-.” Rex looked up at the silver chest plate he’d run into. He blinked. A familiar visor looked back. Mando and Rex stood frozen in tableau in the middle of the slick street. Rex’s mouth opened and closed. Mando stood still as a statue. 

“Where have you been?” Rex exploded. 

“Me? You were supposed to leave hours ago. I thought someone had got you.” Mando snapped.

“Well, I thought you’d been gutted and left for the birds,” Rex shot back. “And I’d never leave a brother behind.”

Mando fell silent. Rex realised his voice had risen to shout through the rain. 

Mando swayed on the spot. Rex shot a hand out and grabbed Mando’s arm. The man looked ready to keel over.

“Come on,” Rex pulled Mando back to the ship. He waved his thanks to Teach still sitting under the dripping overhang. Rex tugged Mando up the ramp and out of the rain.

Rex shoved Mando to sit on the edge of his bunk. He plopped the shivering wet Sham Yoda into Mando’s arms. 

“Are you hurt?” Rex demanded. “Do I need to leave you with the med kit?”

“No,” Mando shook his head. 

“Are you sure?” Rex pressed. “You don’t seem stable, no offense.”

Mando said nothing. Rex knew better than to keep pushing. He pointed to Mando’s left shoulder. The armour sat askew and flaked with dry blood. “What happened here?”

“They managed to rip my pauldron off,” Mando grumbled.

Rex’s blood went cold. “They tried to strip your armour before killing you?”

Mando nodded. “That’s the way they operate. They know it’s the ultimate dishonour for a Mandalorian to have their armour removed by another. They shame our people before they kill us.”

Yikes, yikes, yikes. Rex did not have the context to process that. 

Mando stroked a gloved hand over the Little Jedi’s head. The tyke cooed. It seemed to calm Mando. His shoulders climbed down from around his helmet. Rex heard the sigh through Mando’s vocoder. 

“You know the significance of armour,” Mando said. “I’ve seen you checking your paint.”

Rex nodded. The blue stripes and scores had just as much importance to Rex as his own limbs. To lose them would be devastating. Especially after so many clones had lost themselves to the Empire. Rex swallowed that thought down before it overwhelmed him.

“You’ve never asked me my name,” Mando said. “Not once in all this time.”

Rex straightened up. “It’s yours to give. Names are important.” 

He thought of his brothers, who chose their names so carefully when no one bothered to give them one. He couldn’t help his mind straying to the first of many funerals he’d attended during the war. When the commanding Jedi had read the list of the dead, he’d read their CT numbers. The hiss of disapproval didn’t rise over the helmets bowed in grief. But no CT numbers were ever read at a funeral again.

“Din Djarin,” Mando said softly. Rex almost missed it. “My name is Din Djarin. When we’re alone, you may use it.”

Rex dipped his head. “I’m honoured, Din.”

Mando stood awkwardly and shuffled to the fresher. 

Rex kept watch on him out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t convinced Din’s wobbly demeanour stemmed entirely from emotional upheaval. More likely the kriffer was hiding a blow to the head. Rex recalled a whole tribe of Jedis who would remain unnamed who used to conceal injuries like that. 

Phony Yoda whined and waved his little claws. 

Rex patted his green head. “We found him, Little Grub. Nothing else to worry about.”

Din came back out of the fresher and paused. “What the hell happened to the rations?”

Rex pointed a finger in Mini-Yoda’s face. “This is your mess and I’m not taking the fall for it.”

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is dangerous. I have too many ideas. Thanks for reading and remember to comment.


End file.
